Death, Taxes and Fanfiction
Being gay has its own advantages: Pride parades, doubling your wardrobe if you date someone your own size, and the ability to judge a story by reading its first two paragraphs. Since it is almost impossible to find good representation in mainstream media, many turn to fanfiction as an alternative. The problem lies in the fact that fanfiction is almost always terribly written, and to be able to pick out the jewels from the avalanche of unintentional horror is a daunting task. Fortunately for you, I have perfected this art, and don’t mind sharing my knowledge.
That’s Fine and All, but Will I be Sued?
Before I impart my wisdom, let’s get this out of the way: can you be sued for writing or reading fanfiction? The short answer is: don’t worry. The long answer: you can, but you won’t (this is for writing; for reading there is no possibility of legal action).
The important legal principle at work here is Trademark law, specifically the Fair Use criterion (though there are arguments about this too, as some claim it counts as derivative work, which means another set of rules apply). The law is very murky in this area because it is entirely subjective and there is literally no proper precedent; nevertheless there is nothing to fear. Fair Use allows one to use a copyrighted work without prior permission of the owner depending on four factors, judged on a case-by-case basis:
- The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
- The nature of the copyrighted work;
- The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
- The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
To prove that fanfiction somehow breaks the Fair Use criteria is a virtually insurmountable task. The first point is a non-factor, since no fanfic website allows authors to earn money through them. The third can also be ignored, since fanfiction falls under the Transformative works category: they don’t quote or copy direct parts from the story, they instead develop beyond what has already been laid down as canon, which also makes them derivative. What exactly counts as transformative is vague and largely based on precedent, with satire and parody both being protected. Thus if anyone wanted to write a Harry Potter story where Dumbledore is evil and Harry and Draco end up together, it will be considered transformed enough to count as a parody, as long they don’t profit off of it. This itself protects about half of all fanfiction from legal action.
With both 1 and 3 invalidated, the only option for a successful case would be to invoke 4, and somehow prove that the fanfiction was detracting from the audience of the canon story. Not only would such a case be incredibly embarrassing – since you’re basically admitting a random hobby writer on the internet is better than you – it will never fly in court, since it is simply not possible. Fanfiction never has, and never will, reduce the visibility of the original story; instead it generally attracts even more people to it.
Let’s say a suit does end up happening anyways. This is how it will probably roll out: as soon as the case is filed, the Organization for Transformative Works (a non-profit specifically for the recognition of fanworks) will contact you and amass their own legal team, while simultaneously publicizing the case on social media. The author will face immense pressure to drop the case. The sales of their books will plummet, along with massive social media unfollowing. Fanfic writers are generally the most hardcore fans of any story, since it takes immense dedication to write something from which you can’t even earn money. They bring their friends and family into the story, and will be the first to buy any merch. As the 80–20 rule goes, they are the top 20% who make up 80% of the revenue stream. Losing their loyalty is not something anyone would ever want to do. Any attempt on the author’s side to sue them would be seen as childish and bully-like. In the end it would be a loss no matter what the final result is; thus it is safe to say that no such case would ever have a chance to occur. Indeed even extremely anti-fanfiction authors such as George R.R. Martin and Anne Rice turn a blind eye. As they say, the three unavoidable things for any public figure are Death, Taxes and Fanfiction.
Finding the Gems
Now that the legal business is out of the way, we can finally discuss about how to find the okay fics among the thousands present. This is a difficult endeavor, and many a times have I unintentionally read something which scarred me for life, and I am a horror fanatic who likes gore. The internet is full of horrific accounts about the depths of Hell found on fanfiction sites such as AO3, Wattpad and Fanfiction.net: the stories of a Christian mom rewriting Hogwarts to be a school of ‘Prayer and Miracles’ where Aunt Petunia was the sanest character, a Jesus x Obama smut (I dislike fanfiction about real people in general, but this took it to a whole new level), the incredibly infamous My Immortal, some extremely disrespectful Columbine-shooting fanfics which have been deleted, and the entire Trump x Shrek category – Shrek deserves better, man – I could continue forever (I have purposefully not left any links here.)
The very first thing to do is go to the fanfic website you like most. Okay, scratch that: go to AO3, it’s the best by a huge margin. It has infinite custom tags, the interface is smooth, and the community is generally kind. Then decide what fandom you want to read from, and the pairing as well. Let’s say I want Karma x Gakushuu from Assassination Classroom (I chose this specifically since it comprises mainly of a few good authors who actually write well.) I’d see something like this:
Now just scroll through while reading the blurbs. One thing to look for is grammatical errors: the more there are, the worse it’ll generally be. You can excuse its/it’s confusion since for some unknown reason many people just cannot differentiate between them, but nothing else. More than three spelling mistakes in the blurb is a bad sign, since it shows that the author couldn’t even be bothered enough to let Grammarly correct it for them. If something catches your eye, check the tags to see if the story includes any element you’re uncomfortable with, and then check the Chapters and Last Updated: after all, nobody wants to read an abandoned fic. The best stories have precise tags – not too many – a proper, well-spaced blurb which is properly proofread, and relatively high Kudos, which is basically AO3’s version of likes. Get all of these together and you see something marvelous, like this:
A manageable number of tags, an interesting premise, no obvious errors: this is what makes for the best fanfiction you’ll find on the internet. In fact, this particular story is really good even if you haven’t heard of Assassination Classroom; it is truly a transformative work. If you don’t mind MxM stories, I’d suggest giving it a read; I’ve left the link in the caption.
There are many other tips, some fandom-specific while some more general; however, the above should let you avoid most of the worst there is. Besides, even with all my experience I sometimes stumble upon weird rape fantasies and other unmentionable stuff, so you probably would too regardless of how much I try to cover in this article.
What’s the Point?
By now you must be wondering whether this whole business is worth the trouble; after all, it involves so much insanity that there isn’t much incentive to actually seek it out. However, despite all of this, fanfiction is a valuable experience if you ever want to get into writing or publishing. It is said that the first million words written by anyone are utter garbage, so it only makes sense to start on them as soon as possible. Fanfiction allows you to skip straight to the plot and the character development: the introduction and the universe’s description have already been done for you. It is a great place to sharpen your fangs; indeed NYT#1 Bestselling author Mercedes Lackey also got her start from here. The infamous 50 Shades of Grey was also originally a fanfic which had the names changed before publishing. Rarely, it can also be picked up by the copyright owner and published in the mainstream canon, as is happening with the Korean webtoon Denma, which is being continued by a superfan hired by the original company, with permission from the author.
Even as just a viewer, you learn valuable skills in proofreading: finding places where the tone falls flat, where the flow stops, these are all skills required for positions like First Reader and Editor. If you ever act as a beta reader for any author, do remember to ask for credit; it’ll be valuable in the future.
Fanfiction is, in the end, a way for people to spend some more time with the characters they fell in love with. It’s a lighthearted way to continue the original story, even if it’s only for self-indulgence, and doesn’t deserve a lot of the bad rep it gets. As long as fiction exists, you can be sure fanfiction will too.
Proofreader: Mokshit N.
